


The Long Goodbye

by Ruuger



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Post-Episode: s10e05 Oxygen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: Clara has one last stop to make before returning to Gallifrey.
Relationships: Clara Oswald & Rigsy, Clara Oswald & her family, Jane Austen/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	The Long Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Found this story nearly ready in my WIP folder and thought I'd give the whouffaldi shippers (and Clara/Jane Austin shippers) an early Christmas gift :)

"Will I ever see you again, Clara?"

Clara smiled and leaned forward to kiss Jane Austen gently on the lips.

"I'm sorry, Jane, but I'm afraid this is the last time I can visit you."

Jane returned her smile, reaching to brush a lock of hair from Clara's face. "Then I shall make the best of the moments we do still have."

She slipped her hand to cup the back of Clara's head and pulled her into a deeper kiss. When they finally surfaced for air, Clara took a step back, still stunned.

"Wow. I'm definitely going to miss that." She reluctantly let go of Jane's hand. "Goodbye Jane. Be well."

"You too, Clara."

With one last wave, Clara headed towards the little meadow where she'd parked the Tardis. Ashildr was already waiting for her outside the diner. When she saw Clara, she raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Don't start," Clara said, smoothing her mussed up hair as she stepped past Ashildr and into the Tardis.

Ashildr laughed and followed her inside.

"I was only going to ask where next?"

Clara rested her hand on the big lever and then paused. She had been putting this off for... how long? Years? Decades? Centuries? Time didn't have a meaning when your life was frozen between one heartbeat and another. She only knew that it had been a long time. Longer than it probably should have been.

"I think it's time," she finally said. When she looked up, she saw that Ashldir wasn't smiling anymore. 

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Clara said, and pulled down the lever.

One more stop, and the adventure would finally be over.

* * *

Ashildr left her in front of her apartment, promising to return to pick her up in one week. It would be enough time for Clara to put her affairs in order before... before the end.

Her apartment was exactly like she'd left it. There was a mug of tea on the counter and when she touched it, she felt a lingering warmth, like she'd only put it down for a moment to take out the rubbish. There was a strange feeling in her chest, like her still heart aching to beat as she studied the rooms of her now so very small apartment. She'd been gone so long that she'd almost forgotten what the place looked like, but now the memories were slowly trickling back, like puzzle pieces finding their place. Everything was exactly like it had been, except...

She reflexively glanced towards her bedroom. 

The only thing missing was the idiot and his box. 

She pushed down the pang of longing and returned to the kitchen. She had things she had to do. She grabbed a sheet of paper and began to write.

_Dear Rigsy,_

_When you receive this letter, I will already be dead._

She frowned, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it in the bin.

No.

She picked up another sheet and started again.

_Rigsy._

_It wasn't your fault. Go and live your life. Make me proud._

_Love,  
Clara_

When she was done, she sealed the letter in an envelope and slipped it into her pocket. She didn't know his address, but it would be easy to find out. She'd just ask Ashldir to take a quick detour to drop it off to his place when he was still at the trap street. 

Next, she picked up her phone and dialed her father's number. 

"Hi dad. I have a teacher's conference in Blackpool tomorrow, and I thought I'd come and drop by while I'm there. Yeah, ask Gran to come around too."

* * *

The feeling of unreality didn't diminish during the train ride to Blackpool. She had gotten so used to traveling in time and space that linear, slower-than-light travel felt to her almost like standing still.

Even when she finally met with her family, she still felt like an outside observer to her own life. She wasn't sure how long she'd spent travelling with Ashildr, but it was much longer than she'd known her family. So much longer. Intellectually, she knew that she loved these people, but there was something missing, like those emotions belonged to someone else. She suddenly realised that this was why the Doctor needed people, needed humans. Why he'd refused to travel with Ashildr. He needed humans to keep him from becoming untethered. To keep him from becoming what she had now become.

As she was leaving, Gran suddenly beckoned her over and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm not dying, am I?" she asked as she squeezed Clara to her chest.

Clara frowned. "What? No, you're not dying, Gran. Why would you think that?"

"Well, that's good. I was just thinking that with you suddenly coming over for no reason, it might be that someone was dying and I was worried it might be me."

She carefully extracted herself from her Gran's grasp and made her way towards the door, afraid of what she might say should her Gran ask her to tell the truth of why she was there. She said goodbye to her father and was just about to leave when Linda caught her by the door. She was holding a small shoebox. 

"Your father was doing some work in the spare room and found these. I think you must have left them behind when you moved to London." She gave it to Clara. "It's probably just old rubbish, but your father thought you might want to keep them."

"Thank you, Linda," she said, and then pulled her into a hug. "I know dad loves you, and I'm sorry if I sometimes didn't accept it."

She left the stunned Linda standing in the doorwaý and walked away without looking back, clutching the shoebox like priceless treasure. 

There was a small park nearby, and she took a seat on a bench underneath a large linden tree. She'd agreed with Ashldir that they'd meet at her apartment, but seeing her family had left her so drained that she just wanted to rest. There were still things she needed to do - come up with some explanation to her school why she wasn't going to come to work anymore, visit her mother's grave, write more letters to people who she owed an explanation - but she had no energy for them anymore, and just wanted to call Ashldir to pick her up as soon as possible. 

As she waited to make up her mind, she idly browsed through the contents of the shoebox. It was mainly old rubbish just as Linda had said, old magazine clippings and birthday cards and such, but what caught her eye was an old school picture of a girl with glasses and braces. 

It took her a few moments to recognise the girl as Nina, the girl next door who'd been her best friend in school. Seeing the picture reminded of her just how much she'd lost during her travels, how much she'd been changed by the centuries that she'd completely forgotten the existence of someone who'd been so important to her in her childhood. 

The last time she had seen Nina was the year after they'd both left Blackpool, when Clara had gone to visit Nina in Bristol where she had been studying physics. Nina had even insisted on taking Clara with her to some lecture, to show off that weird professor who everyone had called...

Clara felt her stomach drop as the memory surfaced.

No.

It couldn't have been.

She took out her phone and quickly googled the faculty of St Luke's in Bristol, entering the words 'The Doctor' into the website's search bar. Her hands trembled as she scrolled through the endless list of doctors of various denominations until a selection of records and old photographs from the student archives came up, some from current day and some from as far as from the 70's. She tapped one image by random, and suddenly there he was, standing in the background of some student event with his arms crossed and eyebrows knitted together, looking like the world's most miserable scarecrow.

She scrolled down to the caption to look up his name - John Smith, of course, because he'd never been very good at coming up with names - and then searched for that name on the faculty list. Again, there was a moment of light-headedness when she saw his photo among the teachers.

_Doctor John Smith. Office Hours: Monday, 6.15 a.m. to 6.17 a.m._

Leaving the shoebox behind, Clara stood up and started running towards the train station.

* * *

Only a few hours later Clara found herself making her way down the labyrinthine corridors of St. Luke's. She was just about to give up on her search for the Doctor's office and go find someone to help her when she turned a corner and almost collided with a short bald man in an orange bathrobe. 

He let out a high-pitched squeal and dropped the pile of books that he'd been carrying.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Clara said, and crouched down to help pick up the books.

There was something strange about the man, besides the fact that he was wearing an orange bathrobe, that immediately pinged her Doctor-related-weirdness radar. She debated for a second if it was a good idea to ask about the Doctor from someone that she was increasingly certain was an alien or a cyborg of some kind, but decided to take her chances. If the man was not working with the Doctor, then the Doctor was in danger and would need her help.

She handed the books over to the man, who accepted them with a muttered thank you. 

"I think I'm lost. Do you know where I could I find John Smith's office?"

The man frowned. "Who?"

"John Smith? He's a professor here. Physics, I think, Or maybe poetry."

The man rolled his eyes. "Oh, right. I keep forgetting that's what we're calling ourselves now. At least it's not Basil Disco anymore. Now wasn't that a fun decade." He gave Clara a suspicious look. "Why do you want to find him?"

Clara flashed him her most charming smile. "Oh, just needed to ask him about his courses next term."

The man narrowed his eyes, completely unimpressed by Clara's smile. Definitely a robot. "Hmmm... He's not taking any new students this year."

"Why?"

"He's on sick leave. A freak, fridge-related accident. Now if you'll excuse me." The man attempted to wave his hands, almost dropping the books again in the process. "Shoo!"

Clara thanked him and turned away, pretending to leave, but then ducked behind a door as soon as she was out of his sight. She listened to his footsteps go past her and then quietly followed after him.

The man entered an office at the end of the corridor, and Clara found a hiding place where she could keep an eye on the door.

She could hear muffled arguing coming from the room, and then the man in the bathrobe reappeared, carrying a mug and muttering something about ungratefulness under his breath. Clara waited until he had disappeared behind a corner before entering the office.

If her heart had still been beating, it would have stopped when she saw the Doctor. 

He was sitting behind a large desk in the middle of the room, just staring into distance, completely unaware that he wasn't alone. He looked exactly like he had the last time she had seen him, yet at the same time there was also something unfamiliar about him. Was he thinner, perhaps, the angles of his face sharper than they used to be, or had she just forgotten what he had looked like?

"Bill?" He suddenly asked, his right hand reaching for the shades on the table in front of him. 

"No, it's... it's me, umm, Clara. I went to your lecture once, and I just... I just wanted to come and thank you. For the lecture."

The Doctor said nothing, just stared at her, his hand resting on the shades almost like he was trying to decide whether to put them on or not. There was something unnerving about the way that he was looking at her, like he couldn't see her at all. Clara swallowed, sickness clawing at the pit of her stomach. Coming here had been a mistake.

"I should, I should go. Sorry that I bothered you."

She was almost at the door when he called after her. "Clara?"

She turned back, almost reflexively. "Yes?"

He was still watching her with those strangely empty eyes, his gaze focused slightly past her, as if she wasn't even in the room.

"I think I knew a Clara once. Was that you?"

She wanted to say yes, yes, it was. Would the world really come to an end if she just said yes and told him how much she missed him?

"No, it wasn't. I'm sorry."

The Doctor gave her a sad smile. "Pity. I was hoping it might have been you. She once told me something very important, and even though I can't remember what it was, I would like to tell her that whatever it was, I think..." He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers like he was trying to catch some invisible thing just beyond his reach. "I think I felt the same."

Clara could feel her eyes burning, a millenia's worth of tears waiting to be shed. She took a deep breath and crossed the room.

"I'm sure that she knows that already," she said, taking the Doctor's hand in his. He flinched at her touch, as if he had already forgotten she was even there, and looked up. Their gazes met, and just for a second it was like he could still see her. 

"Goodbye, Doctor."

He smiled, and gave her hand a small squeeze before letting go. "Goodbye, Clara."


End file.
